The present invention relates to floodlight and, more particularly, to a housing for an electric lamp floodlight wherein the housing includes a heat sink assembly.
Heat is a major cause of lamp failure and shortened lamp life in electric lamp fixtures. This is especially true in small, high wattage floodlight fixtures employing lamps such as high pressure sodium vapor lamps. In such lamps, arc tube voltage is directly related to temperature. Excess temperatures produce high arc tube voltages which shorten lamp life. Such sodium vapor lamps have an excess of sodium mercury mixture in a reservoir. As the temperature of the lamp increases, more of the mixture is forced into the arc tube current. This effect raises the voltage across the lamp.
In large light fixtures, heat is not a major problem because of the physical size of the fixture which acts to dissipate the heat. However, in small light fixtures, especially high wattage light fixtures, heat build up is a major problem.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a high wattage light fixture with improved heat dissipation properties.